On March 7 we learned that one of the most active members of the
tenants' movement, Jolanta Brzeska, was found dead in the woods. Her
body had been burnt beyond recognition and it is unclear whether she
was alive or dead when it happened.

From Oct. 1 there is a rent strike action in Warsaw. The action is a protest against the anti-social housing policy of the city. In the last year there was a drastic rent increase, the city does not build new housing and every year many flats are lost from the public housing system. This is due to reprivatization, bad condition of buildings and sales. The result of this is little affordable housing, a spiral of debt, evictions and homelessness.

Compared to many places in Europe, the socio-political situation in Poland is quite tragic with nearly complete right-wing ideological hegemony and attacks on workers' rights and access to public services which go years beyond the reforms just being introduced in the rest of Euope. With little social response to it. As part of one of the few organized pockets of resistance, I try to focus and try to go forward, yet taking a sober look around, the forces that are gaining as the crisis worsens are from the right and extreme right, while the left flounders and the anti-authoritarian movement struggles to keep afloat during a period of social resignation.

In December 2007, a trade-union called “Krajowa Federacja Pracownikow (KFP)” (Worker’s Federation) was formed in Lionbridge Poland, a subsidiary of Lionbridge Technologies, a US-based multinational with subsidiaries all over the world. Lionbridge specializes in translations and adapting products to local markets (so called “globalization services”).

In general, anarchists are on the side of the workers against capital and the state. We support and sympathize with many of their strikes, even when purely economic. However some unions are fighting to support privatizaion and the introduction of market relations in their regions. This has been particularly true in places like some Eastern European countries and in places with a strong leftist presence in the government. In Poland, the ongoing medical workers' strike is affected by the continuing debate over the privatization of health care. The doctor's union supports it - because they think it will help them earn more money.

Thousands of health care workers are on strike in Poland. The government is threatening lockouts and claiming that medical workers should not strike. One newspaper even called the doctors "terrorists". But while the union is calling for more money from the state for the health care system, they have also published dozens of calls for the system to be privatized! Anarchists can offer another vision for running public services.